Abstract
Despite the difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemics, physics students can tackle interesting questions that are part of physics competitions as the German Physicists’ Tournament (GPT) 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemics in 2020, many competitions such as the GPT are held online. Furthermore, the usual options of equipment offered by the supervising university institutions could not be used by the students. The problems of the GPT 2020 therefore had to be chosen in such a way that they could be examined at home using simple means. One of these supposedly simple but profound experiments—the Cartesian diver—is described in this article. The physics of the Cartesian diver has been discussed before Fakhruddin (2003 Phys. Teach. 41 53), Güémez et al (2002 Am. J. Phys. 70 710) and De Luca and Ganci (2011 Phys. Educ. 46 528), as well as various modifications (Ivanov and Nikolov 2019 Phys. Educ. 55 025006). We present a new way of investigating Cartesian divers quantitatively by using 3D printing and common household materials. The paper is addressed to undergraduate students and educators teaching physics at university.
Highlights
Cartesian divers have fascinated scientists for a long time—some reports date back to the 17th century [1]—and are well known as a toy for children
The problems of the German Physicists’ Tournament (GPT) 2020 had to be chosen in such a way that they could be examined at home using simple means
The physics of the Cartesian diver has been discussed before Fakhruddin
Summary
Cartesian divers have fascinated scientists for a long time—some reports date back to the 17th century [1]—and are well known as a toy for children. As they can be used to demonstrate Archimedes’ principle and how the buoyancy can change due to the compression of the gas in the divers, Cartesian divers are widely employed for physics education, for example [2]. A quantitative analysis of the problem with simple methods is quite difficult, as a systematic variation of the volume of the diver is needed. How is this possible? Investigate different possibilities of suitable modifications in order to let the devil rise and discuss the physics behind.’
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